Hopefully we'll be building a space-economy. It were best not to rely upon the Musk monopoly - more to the point upon Musk's enemies - to move refined ores up from Earth. 'Tis cheaper to move ores from our own Moon. Problem: our Moon hasn't got everything. Volatiles remain a sore point, oxygen aside. Also, how about clearing our vicinity of dangerous meteors?
If the rock is full of volatiles, here's how to pluck the volatiles so as not to lose them again as propellant. "Electric sails" are proposed (woot!). As for how a volatile-rich rock even gets close to the Sun: that would be a comet, or small Ceresoid after nudging eccentricity such that a 67P crosses down here. Also lately we've been hearing that even the "rocky" rocks aren't wholly dried out just yet.
For the actual asteroids: some ponder a Bennu hab. A team of humans, I suppose, could respin it into livable dirt and then live in some sealed compartment in the dirt. Problem with that: it's on an orbit to nowhere. We'd like something with regular visits to Earth or at least to some colony with women in it.
Nyrath has been hyping Daniel Suarez - a lot, so I might as well put a marker in here. I may or may not get around to reading Suarez given his climate-change position, namely that he has one, which he shouldn't (it drives men mad). Suarez would even base his economy on carbon-credits (like I said: mad). But anyway.
Back to Suarez's astrophysics, which - Gell-Mann aside - can perhaps be evaluated independently. He suggests disassembling the rocks, moving the rocks to orbits more-convenient to near-Earth, and manufacturing habitats from the raws.
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